Fee row stalls Khmer Rouge trial

The long-awaited genocide trial of former Khmer Rouge leaders in Cambodia was saved from the brink of collapse this weekend after a tense 10-day meeting between national and international judges. However, a petty squabble over lawyers' fees could yet derail the historic joint tribunal between the UN and Cambodia's Extraordinary Chambers.

The tribunal issued a statement saying it had 'resolved all remaining disagreements, although some fine tuning remains to be done'. Spokeswoman Helen Jarvis said: 'It means a big step forward and we hope soon we will be able to move to the judicial process.'

Diplomats had threatened to walk out unless procedural obstacles were cleared, ranging from admissibility of evidence to a row over the height of the judges' chairs.

Only the issue of lawyers' fees is said to remain in the way of the prosecution of up to 10 leaders of the Khmer Rouge's genocidal purge from 1975 to 1979, which claimed up to two million lives - a quarter of the population.

Human Rights Watch's Cambodia spokesman, Brad Adams, said it was just the latest thinly veiled ruse to keep the discussions at stalemate.

He said: 'The Cambodian government simply does not want this trial to go ahead, but must be seen to co-operate to protect income from international aid.'

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, who has run the country as a dictatorship in all but name for 22 years, is part of the Bar Council demanding exorbitant fees from foreign lawyers that would, in effect, exclude them from working as part of the three-year tribunal.